


Will You Leave The War With Me?

by Zigzagwanderer



Series: And The Wanting Comes In Waves [3]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - After College/University, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-26 12:11:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15662976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zigzagwanderer/pseuds/Zigzagwanderer
Summary: Follows on from 'Summersong', where Bill Graham has finished college and gone to Crete with his professor Dr Lecter and his catatonic sister Mischa. See 'O How I Long To Feel Your Arms Around Me.' for how they got together!!!!!!!!!!!!Thanks very much if you're reading this one, it's very good of you! xxxxhugsxxxxxx





	1. Chapter 1

It is hot. It is evening. The courtyard air is not seasoned with salt, but with the dragonfly-green of the fountain’s algae. The vines are weary, and sag with unpicked fruit. 

Hannibal stands, knife in hand. He makes a slit just below the eyes and slides the body apart. The meat is slippery, sea-born marble. 

Bill flushes, catching himself not just staring at Hannibal, at the stretch of his back, beneath the cotton, but in the rapture of some other, older act. Something terrible. Or very wonderful. Some kind of goatish veneration, something hot, and horned, and holy.

The dragging sleeve of sunset trails momentarily across his face, a swinging ribbon of saffron, between the rooftops. The literary chatter coming from inside the big house finally recedes.  
Bill is grateful. He shuts himself down. He hears only the wet suck of Hannibal’s fingers, the drag of the oil; such sounds are simple, and dear, they are the sounds of him and Hannibal, alone, high above this antique, tumbling town.

The pouring of milk from a pitcher.

The wind outside their villa, as it scratches through the grazed grass. 

The language their bodies are learning, with which to speak to one another, only. 

“Not just a brilliant editor, but a passable fishwife,” their host suddenly applauds, loudly, and the praise percusses off the high, tiled wall around the outdoor grill. “And not a drop of ink spilled, you marvellous creature.”  
Professor Dimmond has left his other guests unattended, and has come to stand close to Hannibal. Yet again.

For Billy-boy, it is a bitter lesson in acoustics. 

He swallows down more of the dense, brown wine. His arms fold inward, in protection of his heart. He looks at Anthony’s hand upon Hannibal’s shoulder. He knows that they are old friends.  
That when they were doctorate students together, sharing books and rooms and who knows what-the-fuck else, Billy-boy was still graceless in his ill-fitting uniform, standing outside crime scenes, breathing in blood.

“Just as well, Tony,” Freddie observes, tartly, still working on the corrections to the Elytis text, her notes lamplit now. “Given that he’s come to help with your little cook-out, dressed like a blushing bride.”

Hannibal lifts an eyebrow at his researcher. He lays all of the cuttlefish over the fire, and smiles; Bill is crazy about how brown Hannibal is, and bed-sheets him in white, for the contrast, even when not actually in their bed. 

“You must blame the convent for our immaculacy,” Hannibal demurs, washing his hands. “They shrive our linen in lieu of our souls.”  
“And here I thought the blessed crows of the Virgin were caring for darling Mischa,” Freddie leans across Bill to tap the ash from her cigarette into the flower-bed. “Not her godless guardian.”

She is another friend from _before._

“They are simply reciprocating. Bill has been kind enough to help the good sisters improve their security.” Hannibal strums through the aromatics.  
“Oh,” Anthony smiles. “Well, someone has to have those sorts of skills.” 

Bill does not have to move to allow Hannibal to sit next to him; he is as slight as the marjoram sprigs that Hannibal lays in his lap.  
“Shall we?” Hannibal asks, and Bill leans into the warm, whispered words. Makes himself smile.  
“D’you mean shall we go? Right now, Hannibal? God, yes, please.”  
Hannibal shakes his head. “I did not mean _shall we leave_.” Then he speaks so that all can hear. “Although certainly, Anthony and Freddie can handle one small publicity party without us. Now that the dismembering is complete.” 

And so, they depart.  
Just like that. 


	2. Chapter 2

The cobbled streets climb; civilisation falls away. Gravel gives out to rougher routes. 

Their feet find the way home, to the little villa. 

Hannibal runs, regularly, along the coastal paths and the mountain trails, and Bill roams them, barefoot and dreaming, while Hannibal works on the book, so, neither of them stumbles, even as night breathes in like the wanting between them, in waves of dolphin-blue, and indigo, and abyssal black. 

“I never saw you at any university functions. I looked, hoped, but you were never there.” Bill can hear that Hannibal is asking him something important.  


“Margot used to show me. What they were like. On her phone,” Bill shrugs. Picks something thorny from the wilderness to go with the fistful of marjoram he is still holding. 

He thinks the pain of it might be in penance. 

“Trying to get me to go to the next fundraiser or whatever. The pictures always had you in ‘em.” Bill cannot look up. “Usually in formalwear.”  


Hannibal slows. “I see that even in all my finery, I was not lure enough.”  


Bill reaches out, in the dark. It is cold; the sea is near, now. Blood from the prick of the plant passes from Bill’s hand to Hannibal’s hand.  


“How could I?” He stops and makes Hannibal stop. “How could I? It would have been so much worse. Being near you…loving you…not being able to…”  


“Not being able…to do what, Bill?”

The stars enquire.  


Bill is very still. Then he drops the bouquet. Pulls Hannibal down.

“Whatever the hell I want,” Bill says, softly. 

There is some kind of wild herb underneath them; they are flavoured with its rising song.  


Bill begins to unbuckle them both. 

“I’m sorry,” he is sparkling with nerves, his blood-slickened fingers falter. “Back there. All those people. I just like being with you.”

Billy-boy has been waiting for paradise to end. For his shortcomings, his shyness and his strangeness, to outweigh his attractions.  


He does not have to wonder whether Anthony wants, very badly, to fuck Hannibal; he can smell it on him. 

“I need no apology. It is just that when we return, it would be expected that you attend some faculty events.” Hannibal stops talking, right then. Because Bill’s mouth is hot. His throat, impossible.  


“Expected?” Bill’s chin runs with spilled spit. He moves his thumb where his tongue was, around and around, but then has to stop that too, or else there will be no answer.  


“Of course. By my side. As my partner,” Hannibal manages. “You would be glorious, my sweet, clever boy, but, if the social side of my academic life is not something you could contemplate…”  


Bill bends his head. “I’ve been scared…that this was, y’know…just for the summer.”

And he thinks, _there._  
There, are the different aspects of Hannibal. All in Bill’s wet, red hand. Delicacy. Strength. Pliancy. Endurance. And all parts of Hannibal are beautiful. And all of them must belong to Bill.

They have to. 

“I would do anything, for you. To please you. I would try to be brave.”  


Bill rubs his wet, red lips up and down Hannibal’s cock. Hannibal’s face is both heavenly and falling beyond God, in this moment, his eyes half-closed, his mouth half-open; an echo. 

Bill moves them so that Hannibal can use his hips. 

And Hannibal grips the rocks and the dry, forsaken furze. Pushes into Bill, into the very hillside itself. 

“Sweet Bill. Sweet boy. My angel. Having you is everything. Having your sweet, clever body. It is _everything_ to me.” 

And Bill is dug into, he is planted, he is crammed. He is blinded, he is gaping, he is choked.  


But also, he consumes; he consumes, and he chases the wholeness of it, as the earth chases the seed that it is owed, by right, and by promise. 

“I would fuck you always, Bill. My angel-boy. Always. I would fuck your sweet body always, my endless one.” 

Bill comes, flowing up from some deep, dark birthplace of bliss, some deep, safe place, and Hannibal comes too.  
And although it may be Hannibal’s impulse to look starward, he does not. He looks down as takes himself out of Bill. 

And they both shiver, stripped as they are, and wet, and red, and cold. 

“So,” Hannibal repeats, “shall we?” 

Bill blinks. And coughs his bruised voice back. And rips a snarl of foliage from his curls. The question, from an hour ago at the Dimmond place, seems an ancient one.

“Huh?” 

“Freddie’s remark.” Hannibal is checking his glasses. Bill can see that for once in his life, there is no damage done. 

“Shall we get married, Bill? Shall we make of me a blushing bride?”


End file.
